UK set to allow abortion until birth

British MPs are expected to pass an amendment next week decriminalizing abortion up to birth.

Currently, women can face criminal prosecution for aborting a fetus after 24 weeks, which is when babies are generally considered viable. But Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi has introduced an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill that would shield mothers who abort even full-term babies from being prosecuted. Medical providers who perform such abortions could still face criminal prosecution, unless the abortion is to save the mother’s life or the baby has a severe disability. According to the Daily Mail, over 130 MPs are expected to vote in favor of the amendment.

Access to abortion in the UK was expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the government approved a “pills by post” system where women could receive abortion pills in the mail for pregnancies up to ten weeks. Over the last three years, six women have been prosecuted for using that system to end or attempting to end their pregnancies after 24 weeks.

British health authorities want rampant abortion

In 2020, for example, 44-year-old mother of three Carla Foster asked the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) for an abortion pill, falsely claiming she was just seven weeks pregnant when she was really at 28 weeks. She received the pill in the mail and ingested it, killing the baby. A judge later sentenced Foster to 28 months in prison. The ruling upset British health authorities, who fretted that such a punishment could deter other women from aborting their children.

“We plead to Your Honour to consider leniency in this case. . .we are fearful that if the case before you receives a custodial sentence it may signal to other women who access tele-medical abortion services, or who experience later gestation deliveries, that they risk imprisonment if they seek medical care,” the officials wrote in a letter to Justice Edward Pepperall.

Bad news for Britain’s replacement rate

If Parliament approves Antoniazzi’s amendment next week, it is likely to further decrease the UK’s fertility rate, which has made the British population unsustainable. A fertility rate of 2.1 births per woman is needed for a population to replace itself. The UK’s fertility rate in 2024 was just 1.44 babies per woman, down from 2.47 in 1946. The average age of the population has increased to 40.7 and is climbing.

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